Psalms 81:1-16: a reflection

1Sing aloud to God, our strength! Make a joyful shout to the God of Jacob! 2Raise a song, and bring here the tambourine, the pleasant lyre with the harp. 3Blow the trumpet at the New Moon, at the full moon, on our feast day. 4For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob. 5He appointed it in Joseph for a covenant, when he went out over the land of Egypt, I heard a language that I didn’t know. 6“I removed his shoulder from the burden. His hands were freed from the basket. 7You called in trouble, and I delivered you. I answered you in the secret place of thunder. I tested you at the waters of Meribah.” Selah. 8“Hear, my people, and I will testify to you, Israel, if you would listen to me! 9There shall be no strange god in you, neither shall you worship any foreign god. 10I am the LORD, your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. 11But my people didn’t listen to my voice. Israel desired none of me. 12So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts, that they might walk in their own counsels. 13Oh that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! 14I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn my hand against their adversaries. 15The haters of the LORD would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever. 16But he would have also fed them with the finest of the wheat. I will satisfy you with honey out of the rock.”

The psalm begins with a call to joyful worship, singing, shouting, music, and a feast, celebrating the God who rescued Israel from slavery. And in the midst of it, God speaks a generous invitation: I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt; open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. It is a picture of God's lavish willingness to provide, inviting his people to come to him with wide-open expectation, ready to be filled with his good gifts.

But then comes a note of sorrow. My people did not listen to my voice, God says; Israel would have none of me. So he let them follow their own stubborn hearts. And you can hear the ache in his words: Oh that my people would listen to me, that they would walk in my ways! God longed to satisfy them, to subdue their enemies and feed them with the finest wheat and honey from the rock, but they would not receive what he was so ready to give. His generosity met their refusal.

This psalm holds together God's astonishing generosity and our strange reluctance to receive it. God says, open your mouth wide, and I will fill it, ready to give more than we imagine. Yet like Israel, we often do not listen, do not come with open expectation, and so we miss what he longs to give. Hear God's invitation and his longing. Do not be a people who will have none of him. Come to him with wide-open expectation, listen to his voice, and let him fill you with the good things he is so eager to give.

Lord, you invite your people to open their mouths wide so you can fill them, ready to give more than we imagine, yet how often we will not listen or come with expectation. Forgive my reluctance to receive your generosity. Hear my heart answer your invitation: I open wide to you. Fill me with the good things you long to give, and teach me to listen to your voice and walk in your ways. Amen.